Rodrigo Hernandez walked through the Little Lake Fire Protection District firehouse, looking at the water damage on the ceiling on September 22. He then went up to the roof and saw all the cracks that allowed water to get through building.

“It’s pretty bad,” the owner of Best Roofing Services said a few days later, describing how the aged roof’s cracks mixed with the rain most likely caused the damage seen indoors.

With little updates since the firehouse was built in 1952, the roof isn’t the only aspect that needs fixing. The building also suffers Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) noncompliance, roof leaks, unreinforced masonry, outdated heating ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC) and multiple toxigenic spores that could be harmful to humans. After many years of seeking to replace the firehouse, the fire district’s board recently agreed to move forward on a firehouse tax ballot measure in the November 2018 election. Until then, however, the department is coming up against challenges to keep the firehouse up to code.

“Anything you do is basically putting a band aid. With an earthquake it’s all going to fall down,” said R. Wayne Bashore, construction company owner and former school district facilities director. Bashore served on the fire board from 1989 to 2009, and prior to that he was on the Willits City Council from 1980 to 1988. The building is made of bricks without reinforcing steel bars to keep it strengthened, he explained.

In his time trying to improve the building, he said at one point they tried to put a sloped roof on the firehouse. “Nobody would confirm that the building was structurally sound enough to support the roof structure,” he said. “That’s when we decided that the roof was not worth fixing.”

As for ADA compliance, the building has a few items that need to be brought up to code. The fire department is currently waiting on a finalized report detailing what they need to improve. However, they do know, for example, that the bathrooms and the entrance on the east side of the building are not ADA compliant. Bashore said he doesn’t know what the report will say, but he thinks they’ll have to move to a temporary facility. “If the ADA report says they have to start taking down walls to be compliant, it’s going to compromise the building more than it already is,” he said.

When it comes to the HVAC systems, he said they aren’t functioning properly. Michelle Schnitzius, the secretary, said in late September that they hoped they could get the systems replaced but it’s too expensive.

“And again if you repair, replace or upgrade those, you’re just putting it on a building that’s not going withstand time,” Bashore said.

It’s been more than twenty years since the two unit system was installed at the firehouse. “It’s just old, they’re not up to code anymore,” said Denny Pinon, President of Intercounty Mechanical Electric, who inspected the HVAC system. “It doesn’t have fresh air intake, which is now required.”

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Another issue with the system is that it uses R22 refrigerants, a tank with chlorodifluoromethane gas. Those tanks are being phased out over the next few years and will soon be difficult to replace. He said it would cost about $50,000 to replace their current system. Regarding their HVAC system, he said they should “tear it down an start over.”

The firehouse also recently did an air quality inspection. Noticing a humid smell in the building, workers were curious to see what they were breathing in. “You can smell the mustiness in the air, it’s not good,” said Nate Cowan, inspection consultant of Air Environmental who took samples at the firehouse. He said they also need to do testing for asbestos and lead, but its easier to do a mold inspection so the firehouse went with that first.

Using a pump to suck air into a filter at 15 liters per minute for five minutes in various locations, inside and outside, Cowan collected samples at the firehouse in August. “Being a fire department they’re going to have all sorts of spores,” he said, as they are moving around machines and have the doors open a lot which brings outdoor air inside. In their results, they also have to consider that mold varies a lot in different locations, as do individual’s reactions to those molds, he said.

The most concerning spores Cowan said they pulled up were of chaetomium, stachybotrys and the pen/asp group, which are four different types of similar spores. Regarding the final group, he said he was concerned they found it inside. “Having 10 or 15 spores we don’t get alarmed,” he said. “But this had thousands so it was a high concentration.” He added that he thinks there’s a strong possibility they’re going to have to deal with asbestos.

“With any mold we would suggest it needs to be remediated,” Cowan said. “You just don’t want mold.” As for the price of removing the spores, he said it would be expensive. Triple the cost of a construction project such as installing sheetrock and that’s a ballpark price for mold remediation, he said. The extra costs come with ensuring that “spores don’t get disturbed and spread.” This includes covering up the whole area, cleaning, scraping and then sealing it up.

Similar to what Hernandez found, patching up the roof, Cowan found evidence of water sitting in the building’s internal structure as a result of leaks.

“There’s a lot of leaks,” Hernandez said. He applied waterproof protection to cracks on the east side of the building, leaving a patchwork of white spots scattered on the roof top. Hernandez said he hopes it will last two years,

In the meantime, the fire department, when it launched the tax ballot measure in September, also allocated $87,000 for building improvements for this year’s budget.

However, Bashore is skeptical about bringing the current firehouse up to code. “There’s no way for them to reinforce the building to make earthquake standards, its impossible,” he said. “I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

He acknowledged that in a large earthquake, it could be one of the first buildings to fall, being made with unreinforced masonry. If the building tumbles, their equipment that is so useful in emergencies wouldn’t be able to help the community they’re meant to serve he said. His advice going forward is, “Move or replace the building.”

When asked about how much money it would take to cover the costs of all its needed repairs he said, “that would be a crazy project.”